Song: All to Myself by Dan + Shay
Dan + Shay are a Country duo, that sing and write their own songs. They use guitar and piano when singing or producing their songs. They both met each other in Nashville, Tennessee, and immediately began writing music together. After just two months of writing together, they were signed with Warner/Chappell Music. Before becoming very famous they opened up for other Country artists Hunter Hayes and Blake Shelton. Country Music began in the 1900’s by American Fiddlers. By the 1920’s the first country record was produced. It took a few decades before Country music came to what it is today. Dan + Shay have many great songs, but one song that is near to my heart is All to Myself, because I love the lyrics and the way the music was written.
The Melody of this song is conjunct. It is conjunct because the song has short distance between pitches (like regular steps). The lyrics aren’t sung slowly, instead they sing the lyrics one after another. The range in the song is narrow because his voice remains at one pitch and increases a bit as he reaches the chorus, but throughout the song is really one pitch. The scale of this song is major and bright. It is a happy song and when he sings, the distance between the pitches move fast.
This song also has Timbre, which is the sound or color of an instrument that makes it unique. In the song, very surprisingly Dan + Shay only used a guitar, which was interesting because when I first listened to it, it sounded like there were more instruments. This would fit into the strings classification or in the Hornbostel and Sachs Classification System it would fit into the Chorophones.
This is one of my favorite songs at the moment. I agree that the melody is conjunct because the pitches are very close to each other and move quickly. I also agree the range is narrow and the scale is major and bright. I did not know that for this song only a guitar was used, which was really surprising to me. It sounds like a lot more instruments were used because there is so much going on besides their voices. It is interesting to listen to a song you have heard so many times but think of it in terms of rhythm, harmony, timbre, etc. It really changes the way you hear the song.